DRFC I think that is one of the reasons they won't or can't return to Portugal they still have questions to answer regarding that and also the original investigation. Why an extradition order has never been made is baffling. They also fled the country failing to adhere to a police request to remain in the country!

Why the hell have the parents and their holiday buddies never had to take lie detector tests . Their stories have loads of discrepancies in them and the refusal of all of them to take part in a reconstruction seems odd to say the least.
I know that the tests are not admissible in court but could certainly point to where and whom to focus upon.
It may even rule them out of any involvement, who knows, especially if they have nothing to hide.

Playing devil's advocate, if they were in some way connected to it, with all the resources, focus and cash on the case would they not have been found out by now?

Not if they were being helped cover it.
I've asked a few times...what is so special about Maddie?
What is it about her the other missing children don't have?
Why aren't the same resources spent on them?

No it's not. I was on a Jury two weeks ago at the High Court in Edinburgh. One of the witnesses was extremely agitated in giving their evidence, infact I thought that they were gonna have a heart attack. When the judge was summing up, she said that body language is admissible, if the Jury think that it's relevant.

The mother of a missing girl has hit out at extra money given to detectives involved in the search for Madeleine McCann. Karen Downes, 53, said that her daughter Charlene, who was 14 when she went missing in 2003, had been ‘forgotten’. The Home Office gave another £150,000 to the Maddie investigation which has cost nearly £12,000,000 so far. Charlene vanished in 2003 and it was feared that she was chopped up and served in kebabs in Blackpool (Picture: PA) Her mother Karen has hit out at the extra funding for the Maddie search while other missing children are ‘forgotten’ (Picture: Focus Features Ltd) Mrs Downes said that ‘all missing children need a voice’ but because they are working class their family has been ignored. She told The Sun: ‘I feel very angry that other children – Charlene and so many others – are being forgotten. Theresa May declares she will 'get the runs in the end' in response to Brexit chaos ‘A child goes missing in the UK every three minutes. What about all those others who never come home again?’ She added: [Madeleine] didn’t even go missing in this country – it’s really a matter for the Portuguese police, and yet the money just keeps on rolling in for the search.’ Her daughter vanished in Blackpool on November 1, 2003, and although new CCTV was issued last year there has been no trace of Charlene. Madeleine McCann on the day she went missing from the family’s holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal (Picture: PA) Parents Kate and Gerry McCann pose with an artist’s impression of how their daughter might look at the age of nine ahead of a press conference in central London in 2012 (Picture: AFP/Getty Images) It is feared that her body was chopped up and used in kebabs in the Lancashire town, but two takeaway workers were acquitted of murder in 2007 – at the time Maddie went missing. Maddie, from Leicester, was three years old when she disappeared in May that year while on holiday with her parents in Praia da Luz, a resort in the Algarge region of Portugal. More than half of people now want to stay in the EU Scotland Yard launched its own investigation, Operation Grange, in 2011 after a Portuguese inquiry failed to make any headway. UK detectives were granted an extra £150,000 in March this year to continue the probe, until the end of September. The Home Office said at the time that any requests for further funding by the Met Police would be ‘carefully considered.’

Reading body language plays a large part in what every police officer does every day. I find it completely understandable that they're not giving the time of day to some self-appointed expert telling them how to do their job or, more so, that they've not done it properly.

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The universe is ruled by chance and indifference

"Served in kebabs in Blackpool" that's awful. There was suggestions that the missing prostitutes in Glasgow were ending up in kebabs as well. Makes me boak to think I may have ate human flesh at some point

I can't say I follow this that closely, other than every six months or so on here, so won't be as up on the detail as some.

Did the police call on the experts who have said this or is it someone interjecting themselves into the case? I've presumed the latter but happy to be proven wrong. If it is, what do their own people say?

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The universe is ruled by chance and indifference

I don't the child neglect thing. If they had nothing to do with her disappearance then it's just kicking people when they're down. They made a catastrophic error of judgement and their child paid for it. Losing a child and having to bear the certain knowledge that it was your own actions that allowed it to happen is punishment enough. I've seen on here people disagreeing with that, fair enough - maybe going to jail is worse than losing a child to some people. It would certainly terrify me but that I'd take it in a heartbeat over losing one of my kids (even more so with the uncertainty surrounding Maddie).

I defended this position last time round saying that's there's some compassion in the justice system. Someone responded to that by stating as a fact that a woman was being charged for the death of her child who was in a car that rolled into a river - presumably to suggest that it's standard practice for the justice system to go after bereaved parents and the McCann's were being treated differently. At no point was that woman, or anyone else, ever charged. The closest it came was the police looking into whether charges could or should be brought.

The alternative is that they did have something to do with it. If so, why keep going on about child neglect? They only ever go for small stuff like that (small as opposed to murder) if they can't make bigger crimes stick (eg Al Capone). It looks like the authorities don't they did it so they're not going to go after them on lesser charge of child neglect.

Alternatively, maybe they do think it was them and all this money's being spent building a case against them?

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The universe is ruled by chance and indifference

If the Portuguese wanted to arrest them they would use a European arrest warrant. Tens of thousands are used every year across the EU. They can't though as they have zero evidence that they had anything to do with the disappearance. Not one iota, not a single shred. It probably suits the Portuguese authorities to have this suspicion hovering over the McCann's as it downplays the fact that a child was snatched without trace in one of their popular resorts.